The German economy is not trashing because of renewables.
It's because of the US hegemony.
What is causing German farmers to protest?
German Government hypocrisy and procrastination in addressing climate change issues, the cheap grain being accepted from Ukraine diminishing farmers profits, immigration and sanctions that hurt the EU more than they hurt Russia are all involved in the farmer’s anger. However, German and Dutch animal farmers are already heavily subsidised with 82% of the EU’s farm subsidies going to animal-based foods (which account for 84% of EU’s food related GHGs: yet supply just 35% of their calories).
This makes animal based food products unfairly and artificially cheaper to plant based ones. It also externalises the impacts of emissions to taxpayers. Importantly, subsidies always make the rich and powerful (in this case the animal ag industry) richer and more powerful.
The important point to keep in mind is that the trashing of the German economy is being deliberately done by the US: who would rather destroy the EU than allow it to trade and flourish alongside Russia or god forbid- watch the EU join BRICS.
The US does not have the economic power to provide an alternative ally for Germany and the EU, but it does have the ability to manipulate regime change and the power to destroy them.
It has the CIA and the ability to blackmail, groom and bribe. The US is adept at stirring up nationalism, Islamophobia, anti-Russian, anti-immigration, anti-environmentalist, anti-China or pro-fossil fuel and pro-animal ag protests.
They can blow up pipe lines that provided Germany with affordable Russia gas. They can entice and bribe industry to leave and make for better conditions in the US. They can make highly skilled German citizens unemployed. They can make domestic animal agricultural appear threatened with stirred up nitrogen wars: policies that aim to protect the environment for Dutch people but threaten the profits of multinational Big Anima Ag. They can trash nuclear power and force reliance on coal and on US products, such as expensive LNG (at four times the mark up) shipped across the Atlantic. These are not ‘green’ policies by any stretch of the imagination.
Europeans are forced to chose between neoliberals such as Macron, or the far right, such as Le Pen. Both are supported by big business but one pretends not to be. Europeans are prevented from noticing there’s no real choice and blinded to the fact that they just flip flopping between the two. They think they have achieved victories when one or the other is in power.
No amount of protest for or against policies or candidates will stop this. The US have Scholtz’s balls in a vice and they seem to have made Baerbock offers she can’t refuse. Any regime change will already have been prepared, with the AfD gaining traction.
Biden is now blocking export of LNG now that the EU is dependent on it. The EU/NATO is going down economically, politically and on purpose. We cannot prevent it nor protest our way out of it. The reach of the Stars and Stripes is too long and too strong.
However, while the US deep state exhausts its craven fear, insanity, war mongering and rage, BRICS+ grows in peace, diplomacy, co-operation and economic ability (unless climate change has made this impossible). We will be asking the Chinese for advice on building a socialist model of civilisation in which half of the world’s wealth is not in the hands of five Western men.
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